For really old movies, like the Godfather series, are the bluray editions better IQ wise than DVDs at full HD? More precisely, how did they make the Blurays? Did they just simply upsample them as well (in the same way your software player will perform for your dvds?)?

Most will be digitalized from the old master again. Depending on the quality this can look very good.Some use the same master as the DVD, which can lead to improvements because the master can be of good quality and only the lower DVD specs were the limiting factor.And then some are bad upsamples/filtered to death and look no better then the DVD. This can also happen with recent movies (e.g. The Girl Next Door).

Just browse to any DVD/BR review site and you'll find the difference. There are various sites that have listings of picture quality etc as well. Very few BRs will be upscaled DVDs, they might use the same masters but these masters aren't DVD resolution usually?

I have a few duplicate movies in BD and DVD formats. Other than the obvious resolution difference (on a large enough screen it should be pretty easy to tell the difference between an upsampled dvd-resolution master and a true HD master! Check out the Blade Runner box sets) the bigger issue is that what you get on a DVD is either NTSC or PAL encoded. The color gamut on BD is far superior to either of the DVD formats, and that's apparent even on a well-done DVD transfer using component outputs. NTSC black is very poor, and you can't get a true red. PAL is better, but still nowhere near what you can get on a BD with AVC and a digital connection to the monitor.

Nuts, I just bought the DVD set of the godfather. Oh well. These big media companies are greedy to no end. They should offer huge discounts for people who own obsolete formats of their media when buying new formats.

In any case, I think how things are going with streaming, blu-ray is probably the highest quality content we'll be able to get for a long while. I don't see any other physical format coming after it, and it's a real shame, cause streaming is very limited, not only in quality, but also what kind of player (processing, etc.) you can use.

In any case, I think how things are going with streaming, blu-ray is probably the highest quality content we'll be able to get for a long while. I don't see any other physical format coming after it, and it's a real shame, cause streaming is very limited, not only in quality, but also what kind of player (processing, etc.) you can use.

There was a guy who wrote a music guide that claims he bought a bunch of cassettes back in the 70s, and had to re-purchase 100s of CDs in the 80s and 90s. The same goes with VHS and DVD, now we have to shift to bluray for the movies that were filmed half a century ago.

In any case, I think how things are going with streaming, blu-ray is probably the highest quality content we'll be able to get for a long while. I don't see any other physical format coming after it, and it's a real shame, cause streaming is very limited, not only in quality, but also what kind of player (processing, etc.) you can use.

There was a guy who wrote a music guide that claims he bought a bunch of cassettes back in the 70s, and had to re-purchase 100s of CDs in the 80s and 90s. The same goes with VHS and DVD, now we have to shift to bluray for the movies that were filmed half a century ago.

It sounds like you still don't understand that age has nothing to do with it. 35mm film has far more resolution than Blu-Ray, old films weren't filmed on VHS.

Technology progresses, what exactly do you expect companies to do? You don't have to buy anything, as long as your old hardware keeps functioning and you're happy you don't have to replace anything.

My point was that I think we've reached a peak with home video where quality will stall for a long time, so buying blu-ray is a good choice if you're collecting movies. The same happened with audio CDs, and you can still be sure to buy a CD and get about the max quality your ears can handle. 1080p is not only a blu-ray limitation, but our spanking new HDTVs as well. Unless that weasel James Cameron starts convincing us that 48Hz-per-eye 3D movies must be had at home...

The color gamut on BD is far superior to either of the DVD formats, and that's apparent even on a well-done DVD transfer using component outputs. NTSC black is very poor, and you can't get a true red. PAL is better, but still nowhere near what you can get on a BD with AVC and a digital connection to the monitor.

NTSC and PAL are not used on DVDs, they are analog transmission standards.

Actually what Cameron proposed was raising the framerate for smoother motion, 48fps was for regular "2D" movies. The "soap opera effect" though is gonna be tough to get out of people's minds. It even looks bad to me when directors use 360 degree shutter with regular 24fps movies shot digitally (like Public Enemies, and I've seen other Michael Mann movies criticized for this as well). Even if it's purely psychological, I don't think it's gonna be easy for people to swallow. On the other hand, those 120Hz TVs and their interpolation modes are pretty popular, so maybe I'm wrong, and most people won't care.

Actually what Cameron proposed was raising the framerate for smoother motion, 48fps was for regular "2D" movies. The "soap opera effect" though is gonna be tough to get out of people's minds. It even looks bad to me when directors use 360 degree shutter with regular 24fps movies shot digitally (like Public Enemies, and I've seen other Michael Mann movies criticized for this as well). Even if it's purely psychological, I don't think it's gonna be easy for people to swallow. On the other hand, those 120Hz TVs and their interpolation modes are pretty popular, so maybe I'm wrong, and most people won't care.

I think it's odd to pick 48fps though? Why not 50fps? At least we have 1080p50 as a standard already don't we?

I think they're filming the Hobbit at 48fps but I'm sure that just mentioned that in reference to people getting headaches from 3D, it was over on thedigitalbits.

I think the "soap opera effect" is less of a problem when the source is really high quality. I've watched the NHK demo - 4k and 8k at 60fps - and it certainly didn't suffer from it. Problem is, the downconversions would.

I hate 24fps stutter, but still kind of see the point. I don't think much to 100Hz/120Hz motion compensating TVs at all.

With 24fps, directors have to work really hard to overcome the limitations of 24fps. With 60fps, those limitations would be gone, and they'd have to work really hard to create a "magic" look that was removed from reality (in the same way that 24fps can be). It's probably no harder than what they do know - but people don't like change.

EDIT: I find 24fps even more objectionable in 3D. However, I think animation at 50 or 60fps looks _very_ strange. I suppose it would be possible to get used to it. Maybe.

For really old movies, like the Godfather series, are the bluray editions better IQ wise than DVDs at full HD? More precisely, how did they make the Blurays?

According to a Popular Mechanics or Popular Science (can't recall which one) article I read a few years back, all Blu-rays are mastered from the original film, sometimes with enhancements. It's quite reasonable to expect this to be the case, because if it weren't that would mean even DVDs are simply VHS rips, which they aren't.

Obviously there may be the odd film company or so who decides to cheat consumers via upsampling or other tricks - back in the early 2000s MGM got caught faking widescreen in their DVDs by cropping 4:3 video to 16:9, for example. But for the most part all Blu-ray/HD video is mastered from the original film.

Haven't seen the blu-ray of the Godfather, but pretty much all blu-rays I've seen (a lot) are a visible improvement over DVD's resolution. The Godfather blu-rays came out in a pretty fancy schmancy set, so I think they put out a pretty well thought out product.

2Bdecided, you don't get 24fps stutter these days if it's what I think you mean? Most TVs have a 24fps mode so they don't convert to 60fps and introduce the stutter.

I'm in PAL land - we never had 3-2 pulldown (which is a far nastier jerky motion) but native 24fps is far too low a frame rate to convince the brain that it's seeing real-life-like smooth movement. You can't pan very quickly at all.

I'm in PAL land - we never had 3-2 pulldown (which is a far nastier jerky motion) but native 24fps is far too low a frame rate to convince the brain that it's seeing real-life-like smooth movement. You can't pan very quickly at all.

Cheers,David.

Me too TVs/projectors usually double the frame rate anyways in 24fps mode, generally the stutter you get is the conversion to 50 or 60fps but I see your point.

If you don't focus the lens, the picture is blurry and no matter what resolution you throw at it, it's still blurry. That's what he meant with material not earning 1080. There's no content except some random noise and you just waste space/bandwith that could be spend for e.g. temporal resolution i.e. more frames per second.That doesn't mean all movies are like this, but producers should choose the format according to the source instead of 1080p24 no matter what. These are included in the Blu-ray specs for a reason.

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Personally, I'm glad we have it, hell, even some upscales can look better (than consumer end-device upscales) if done with professional algorithms and/or post production corrections.

You saw too many movies were they zoom into security cam footage and magically 'enhance' the picture.

People simply would complain if they got 720p. How many people bitched about the Discovery edition of the BBC documentaries (Planet Earth, Life for instance) being 1080i? They're 1080i, but the source isn't, and IVTC can be done to get the 1080/24p source. Freaking Oprah did the voiceover for that version, instead of Attenborough who did the original, and even some "professional" internet writers (IIRC it was CNET) thought 1080i was the biggest "flaw" of that Life version?!

And from their standpoint, there's no reason to use 720p (esp. considering marketing). When it's bad enough that the only difference between 720 and 1080 is disc space, it doesn't matter because a 50GB blu-ray disc doesn't have that problem.

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There's no content except some random noise and you just waste space/bandwith that could be spend for e.g. temporal resolution i.e. more frames per second.

How do you add more frames per second to the content you guys are talking about? There are no magic in-between "frame guessers" either.

You saw too many movies were they zoom into security cam footage and magically 'enhance' the picture.

There are actually quite a few releases on Blu-ray where their DVD counterparts being upscaled actually produce results that are either the same as the Blu-ray release or better (even without the increased color gamut). Kiss Of The Dragon was an awful Blu-ray release and the DVD version actually looks better in many ways. It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia is shot in SD and really doesn't benefit from Blu-ray, the recent release of From Dusk Till Dawn actually manages to make the older DVD releases look great, 28 Days Later was shot in SD with limited equipment so the Blu-ray release was a bust, season 13 of The Simpsons was all in SD, the 1978 version of Halloween is better on DVD (actually, I personally believe it is best on VHS), and there are many more examples. There are instances when Blu-ray serves no benefit (in terms of video quality) as the source master was treated poorly or the source material was in standard definition from the get go and the increased color gamut (among other things) of Blu-ray couldn't even make the videos look better.

So SCOTU's comment was correct as there are many cases where the Blu-ray release serves no benefit over the DVD version.